Digital Photography: A Basic Manual

Digital Photography: A Basic Manual. 

About the Book:

This thorough, concise, and easy-to-use guide to capturing digital photographs provides an entire step-by-step course for budding digital photographers. All concepts are fully illustrated with sample work by internationally renowned professionals, representing editorial work, photojournalism, and everything in between. Topics covered include essential information for both film and digital photography, such as exposure controls and shutter speed, as well as digital-specific information on image editing, printing methods, and even file storage. The first digital textbook by legendary photography teacher Henry Horenstein, Digital Photography is the best guide yet for aspiring digital photographers, essential both for photographers transitioning from film to digital and those learning the art of photography for the first time.

My Comments:

Once upon a time, you had a choice.  You could buy a simple Instamatic camera where everything was pre-determined and locked in  place, or you could buy a fancy SLR camera for a lot of money, and you got to (or had) to set everything.  Then came digital photography when suddenly not only did we not have to worry about the cost of film (though batteries can eat you alive) but we could decide, even with the simplest cameras whether we wanted to play with the settings or have the camera decide what they should be.  So, what is an f-stop?  What is white balance?  What difference does lens speed make?  Those questions and more are answered in Digital Photography: A Basic Manual.  Besides telling you how to use all those settings on your camera, there are also chapters on lighting, scanning, image editing and printing.  In short, this book can take you from point, shoot, print to adjust the camera, set the scene, take the picture, edit it and print it.

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy.  Grade:  A.